


Faithless Skin and Freefalling

by vylit



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Moving On, Multi, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-08
Updated: 2004-12-08
Packaged: 2017-12-20 17:01:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vylit/pseuds/vylit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark and Lois are together, Lex and Chloe are together, but Clark can't help but miss what he doesn't have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faithless Skin and Freefalling

It takes Clark ten minutes to drive to work from his apartment, and less than forty-five seconds to fly from downtown to the roof of the Daily Planet.

He keeps his telescope on the bedroom balcony and avoids magazine stands after he almost set one on fire last month. He eats Chinese on Wednesdays, gets his hair cut every ten weeks, calls his mom on Saturday nights, early if he’s watching Cosby show reruns on television, late if he runs into trouble while on patrol.

His mom has seen their apartment twice, asks if Lois and him are looking into adopting, and ends her calls by telling Clark his father would be so proud of him.

* * *

Super hearing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It helps him save people, and he wouldn’t give that up. Not for all the problems it causes. Not if it meant one innocent person dying. But there are times when he wishes he could turn it off for a while, a day or two. Now is definitely one of those times.

_Billionaire playboy and CEO, Lex Luthor, announced his engagement to the head of his PR department and long time girlfriend, Miss…_

Clark walks into the living room to see Lois staring at the television, her fingers paused over her laptop.

_While they have yet to set a date, those close to the couple believe it’ll be soon and say…_

Clark mutes the television set and lays a hand on Lois’ shoulder.

“How… she knows what he is. I don’t – I don’t understand why she would --” Lois is confused, bewildered, and it’s scary in a way Clark can’t begin to explain. “How could she, knowing who, knowing what he is?”

Chloe’s smile is wide and her head thrown back, the ring large and beautiful on her finger. She looks happy, and Clark doesn’t know how to begin to explain this to Lois. Lois has never needed someone else to define her, has never looked into someone’s eyes desperate for acceptance, and has always known exactly who she was and what she’s worth. Clark doesn’t know how to tell her, to make her understand what it’s like to have Lex’s regard and all the intensity that goes with it.

Like the first time he rode a roller coaster and his stomach dropped to his ankles, the metal of the safety railing giving way under his fingers, and the panic choking him as he gasped for air, just to have it dance away from him. It was exhilarating and frightening, leaving him with Jell-O knees, a racing heart, and a vague feeling of gratitude to the wind that had attempted to push against him, to lift him out of the seat and away from the earth he was hurtling towards.

He was nine at the time, and it was the first time he’d felt blind, helpless terror; the memory itched at him for years. It left him wondering if that was how other people felt things. How humans felt things.

Years later, a car accident showed him why people love roller coasters, jump out of planes, and gamble their life savings on a hand of poker. One accident, soft lips, and the taste of earth and salt woke him up and left him with the giddy rush of freefalling. Alien. Lex. Spaceship. Mutants. Kryptonite. Fast and out-of-control, like love and destiny and every other dangerous, clawed thing that doesn’t care for plans and safety, his life changed, and he was swept along, despite his breathlessness and dragging heels.

He’d never felt that alive, that real, and Clark can’t explain how bright and painfully vivid his life was when Lex was in it. It’s too close to the only truth he’s never shared with Lois.

“I don’t know. I don’t know, Lois.” Clark says, flipping off the television and reaching down to kiss her.

It only takes a fraction of a second for him to be on the other side of the couch, Lois’ soft breasts pressing against his chest, her mouth demanding. He tries to tell her with every touch, with every moan she pulls from his throat, and every movement of his mouth just how much he loves her, how grateful he is for her acceptance, how he knows she’s saved him in a way no one else could. And when his lips move to her neck, he sucks on her pulse, hoping that one day he can take her surety and unwavering sense of purpose into himself.

“Clark,” Lois breathes, hands pulling impatiently at his shirt until he lifts his arms so she can pull it over his head. Sliding out from under him, Lois pushes him down and straddles him, her eyes dark shadows as she moves her hands across his chest. Clark looks down expecting to see his mistakes and missteps written on his skin like ink on cave walls, cryptic and endless, but its smooth, unblemished, and when Lois bends her head to lick at the dark hair on his stomach, he closes his eyes.

* * *

Sometimes Clark dreams of flying and never touching down. A broken winged eagle with no home, no knowledge of time or responsibility with an eternity of clouds to catch, a world of silence to chase. His problems, the world’s problems are far away, so insignificant against an endless horizon. He’s finite and flawed, cradled by the earth’s gravity, made slower, made mortal. Living on gliding speed and heartbeats.

Other times he dreams of stillness, of quiet nights in his barn loft, looking up at the sky. It’s peaceful, and he waits, watching for someone or something, but he doesn’t know what. The sense of expectation heavy in the air but he doesn’t leave; he knows if he does there’s no chance of finding it at all.

Still, those are the pleasant dreams, the ones he allows himself to think about.

* * *

He shouldn’t be here. He should be on patrol or at home with Lois. He should be finishing his article on Senator McKinley. He should be anywhere but here, but he can’t make himself look away and his legs are staging a rebellion against his common sense.

It’s just…the penthouse isn’t just Lex’s anymore. While Clark knows it hasn’t been for some time, he’s still surprised to see just how much of it is Chloe. From the framed articles on the walls of the office to the chunky bracelets on the dresser, Chloe’s marked every room. Her presence so obvious Clark can smell her spicy citrus perfume across the street, imagine it wafting through the rooms like a high-energy poltergeist.

Caught up in cataloguing the changes, he almost misses Chloe leaving the building. Strappy sandals click on the sidewalk as she moves towards her car with quick strides, a slighter, paler version of Lois, and she’s two steps from her door when Clark sees the shadows move away from the building and in her direction, fast and silent.

“Going somewhere, Mrs. Luthor?”

Chloe slowly turns. “It’s still Miss Sullivan. Or don’t you watch the news?” Voice cold, her smile cuts with Lex-like precision. “Marty, is that you? I thought your boss was smarter than this. Lex’ll be so disappointed.”

“Step away from the car.”

“Whatever you say.” Her hands drop from her bag and hang loose and she steps in Marty’s direction. “So how is your cousin doing, Marty? I heard he was back in town. Lives off Wilshire, right?” Chloe takes another step. “His wife is beautiful. They seemed so happy on their honeymoon that I even considered going there for my mine… but Lex doesn’t like islands much.”

The hand on the gun shakes the slightest amount. “Shut up and move.”

“No problem, Marty. I was trying to make conversation, but I can see now that you’re more of an action man. My mistake.” She takes another step, her fingers drumming against her thigh. “Though, and I say this for your benefit, I can’t imagine either one of you will be doing well when Lex finds you. And he will find you, Marty. There’s no place you can go that’ll be far enough away; you have to know that. But, if you drop the gun and leave now, I can promise that the consequences won’t be as… permanent.”

Clark drops between them before he makes a conscious decision to do so, and Marty must be even more on edge than he’s shown since the surprise causes him to drop the gun and stare stupidly for a moment before making a move towards it.

One swift punch to the face and he’s on the ground, Clark standing above him, cape brushing Marty’s face when he crushes the gun.

“It’s kind of insulting to have a kidnapper this incompetent,” Chloe says, sounding amused. Lex’s complete disregard for danger must be catching. “Do you know I’ve had high school kids do this better, Marty? Maybe you should look into a new line of work.”

Clark hasn’t been face to face with her in over a year, and now he is he doesn’t know what to say. Somehow, ‘thanks for getting our car towed last week and making us miss the meeting with our informant’ doesn’t seem like the best idea. He bites the inside of his mouth to stop himself from saying her name and making the accusations Superman would never and could never make. “Where are your bodyguards?”

Chloe shrugs and gives the mischievous grin that used to make Clark want to hug her. Or strangle her. Or both. “I don’t like having someone follow me around, and I think they make Lana uncomfortable.”

“Lana?”

“It’s hard to pick bridesmaid dresses with them lurking over our shoulders with guns, and it’ll definitely make the wedding planner uneasy. It’s not like Smallville is a hotbed for assassination attempts… well, not anymore, anyway.”

It’s the twitch, the answering smile that tries to fight its way out that snaps Clark back to reality, reminds him of who Chloe is now, of every story she’s sabotaged and every contact she’s bought off with Lex’s money. “You should --”

“Besides,” Chloe says, interrupting him. “I can take care of myself.” Chloe’s empty right hand produces a gun from the slit in her skirt. “I wasn’t going anywhere with Marty, Superman, and I haven’t needed you to save me for a very long time.” Chloe turns her back to him just in time to face a very pissed off Mercy exiting the building with her gun drawn. “If you expect him to get out of here with the ability to walk or reproduce, you might want to fly him out of here now.” Chloe glances over her shoulder, looking past Clark.

“I’ll see you around, Marty.”

She doesn’t look back again.

* * *

He’s drinking his first cup of coffee – one creamer, two sugars – when he hears the news. Martin Robert Jennings, known as Marty to his attempted kidnapping victims, was murdered. Despite the fifteen inmates and one guard that were all in twenty feet of him, there are no witnesses, but there rarely are when Lex’s involved.

And Clark’s not the least bit surprised when the phone rings and he’s told that Nathaniel Jennings, owner of Jennings Pharmaceuticals and Marty’s cousin is currently being investigated for tax fraud and embezzlement, and that he was found in bed with an underage male prostitute when the police went to question him.

Clark schedules an interview with Nathaniel and sits down to write the article detailing everything from Nathaniel’s inevitable claims that he was framed to his wife’s filing for divorce.

* * *

It comes to him slowly, pushing its way through a fog, “We know you’re not sleeping, Clark. You don’t have to pretend with us. You were never all that good at it.” Clark opens his eyes to Chloe’s Mona Lisa smile. “Better.” She moves away, and Clark sees that she’s cut her hair again. It’s short; bird wings flipping outwards. She hasn’t worn it like this since high school. “I think he’s with us, Lex.”

Clark tries to turn his head, but he can’t move, can’t see anything but Chloe and bright white walls that make him want to close his eyes.

“I don’t know. I don’t think Clark has been with us for some time,” Lex’s says, walking into Clark’s field of vision. Smooth and thick like molasses, he’s still the most graceful man Clark’s ever met, and Clark has to remind himself that Lex is the snake in the garden, the poisonous embodiment of temptation. “But maybe he wants to be.”

They both smile at Clark. Not cold or mocking, but the kind of relaxed, genuine smiles he used to get whenever he wanted them. And now, with hindsight and retrospect sinking their teeth in him, he wishes someone would have told his younger self that they weren’t going to be around forever, that there was only a certain number of times he was going to be able to hunt down a story with Chloe or play pool with Lex. He would have paid more attention to the details, might have worried less and appreciated it more.

Clark’s train of thought derails when Lex’s hands reach out to push Chloe’s hair away from her neck, and he feels himself stiffen, unable to look at anything but Lex’s mouth moving against Chloe’s skin, unable to feel anything but their unwavering gaze heavy on his skin.

The voice inside his head that sounds a lot like his dad is getting louder, telling him to figure out what they’ve done to him and get the hell out, reminding him that he’s married to the most beautiful, intelligent, sexy woman he’s ever met.

Clark pushes up, tries to free himself, but he can’t see anything, can’t feel anything but the weakening effects of Kryptonite, and there’s a part of him – not nearly as small a part of him that it should be– that doesn’t want to escape at all. He has spent his life listening to that voice inside his head tell him what’s right and wrong, but this feels inevitable and inescapable, and this time he doesn’t want to fight it. Freefalling.

When Chloe’s hand closes around his cock, he doesn’t try to bite back the groan, doesn’t try to keep his eyes open. “It’s OK, Clark. We won’t let you hit the ground.”

Panting, his heart pounds so loud he can’t hear anything else, and when Clark opens his eyes, he sees Lex with his cock out, hand moving fast as he stares at Clark’s mouth, at Chloe’s hand between Clark’s legs.

Lex leans forward in slow motion, and he doesn’t taste like salt now, but fire, alcohol, and iron, dark and dangerous as his tongue slips into Clark’s mouth. Just the feel of the scar moving against Clark’s top lip and the hard cock pressed against his side is better than anything, than everything. All he can see is red, and all he can feel is them, mapping their history into his skin. Not hurting him or hating him or demanding things of him that he can’t give.

“Please,” Clark gasps, imagining himself inside Lex and the full push of Lex inside him. Nowhere to hide, their secrets laid out and stripped down with Chloe to see it all. And to be in Chloe, to kiss and suck at every inch of her skin, losing himself in the girl that loved him when he was just Clark, awkward and god, so naïve.

But the touch is gone before he can say it, ask for it, and he opens his eyes to Chloe and Lex, both so pale and small, backing away from him, their faces expressionless. Their mouths open at the same time; their eyes fixed on his chest. “Your scars are showing.”

* * *

Clark jerks awake, his body covered in light sweat, his cock throbbing.

“Smallville?” Lois stirs beside him, the sheet moving to reveal one long, tanned leg. Her short hair is fanned over the pillow, tangled from the way she tosses and turns, wrapping herself in the blanket.

“It’s nothing.” Clark looks around the room, expecting to see Lex and Chloe, but it’s empty. “Just a nightmare.”

He waits until her breathing evens out again to get out of bed. Walking to the closet, he pulls out his brown suit and his blue tie, the ones he usually wears on Thursdays, and climbs into the shower.

Turning the water as cold as he can, he stands under the spray and curses when he realizes his cock isn’t going down. After ten minutes he gives up and wraps his hand around it, rough and punishing as he jerks himself.

He doesn’t say Lois’ name when he comes.

 

end.


End file.
